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Essentially, the Virtual Console was console game emulation made legal and had the backing from every major console manufacturer there ever was besides Atari, Sony, Microsoft, and some assorted failed consoles that Nintendo doesn't want to bother with. It was successful enough that it led to WiiWare once Nintendo decided to offer original downloadable software for the Wii.

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Nintendo Entertainment Systemnote Originally exclusive to Ambassadors, but as of the release of Super Mario Bros. to non-Ambassadors it's one of the main systems, and the release of Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream, which was not an Ambassador game, showed that the games Ambassadors received are not the only ones planned for release, with more non-Ambassador NES games having been released since then.

3D Classics note A series of past games from the NES, Arcade, Sega Genesis/Mega Drive and Sega Master System games that have the ability to be seen in 3D; these are mostly based on games originally developed by Nintendo itself aside from a few games licensed from another company.

The Wii U is backwards compatible with Wii Virtual Console titles via operating in Wii mode. It also has its own Virtual Console which supports Off TV Play and posting on Miiverse. Prior to launch, Nintendo released a handful of NES and SNES games at a reduced price as part of a trial campaign over the course of six months and announced that owners of Wii VC titles would be able to upgrade to the Wii U version for a small price.

The Virtual Console service shows examples of...

Copy Protection: The Wii, as well as the Wii U's Wii mode, will deny any games on an SD Card that weren't installed on the system's own Wii Shop Channel. This does create problems when trying to transfer the data to a larger-capacity SD card, however.

Damn You, Muscle Memory!: The Wii U Virtual Console is notorious for the input lag that its games suffer from, especially with N64 games; while not all-that noticeable to a newcomer, people who've played the games on their original systems note that this split-second delay tends to mess up their performance every so often, particularly during moments that require good precision. This video provides a good example of the issue, comparing the Virtual Console port of Super Mario 64 to the N64 original. Given how the issue is present on the Wii U Virtual Console but not on the 3DS or Wii one, people have theorized that the issue stems from the Wii U using a wireless controller and streaming video output to two screens at once.

Digital Destruction: Virtual Console games tend to be unusually dark, and Wii U re-releases of NES games also seem noticeably blurry due to the permanent anti-aliasing effect. Additionally, the audio sounds somewhat muffled compared to both the original versions and third party emulations. Supposedly, all of this is to mimic the effect of playing the games on a CRT monitor, but it just ends up looking and sounding muted. All of these problems are remedied on the NES Classic Edition, however, complete with a more authentic "CRT mode"

Any Game Boy or Game Boy Color game on the 3DS has a hidden letterbox. Hold down Start and/or Select while starting the game from the home menu, and the game will be shrunk down to its original resolution, with a border that resembles the game's original console to fill up the empty space. The game screen "sinks" into the border when the 3D slider is turned up. The battery light even dims when the battery reaches 25%.

The Game Boy library has a feature to switch from the black and white palette to the pea-green palette on the original Game Boy. To do this hold L and R and then press Y. NES and SNES games on 3DS that use the second controller use this combination to switch between the two controller inputs, with SNES games using the extra ZL and ZR buttons on the New 3DS rather than L and R.

Late Export for You: Often, a game that didn't initially release in a nation will come late through this service.

StarTropics has Uncle Steve's letter in the Operation's Guide. Not only is it word-for-word from the original release, but there's also a picture of piece of paper over a bucket of water. Touching it reveals the password for level 4, which digitally simulates how you got it in the original release.

Updated Re-release: A well-known feature of Virtual Console games is that some of them have modifications to do something as simple as fixing a bug or adding a completely new feature.

A general one: Every game that has flashing or excessively bright lights (e.g. the Donkey Kong Country trilogy games) at some point has the lights slowed down, dimmed or removed completely. This is to prevent seizures.

Pokémon Snap can send photos to the Wii Message Board from the gallery by pressing select. For whatever reason, it can only be done once per day. This is to simulate the Snap stations that were available during the game's release.

Tecmo Bowl replaces all the names of the players with just their numbers, due to Electronic Arts' exclusive NFLPA video game license.

Wave Race 64 replaces all the Kawasaki Product Placement with Wii and Nintendo DS advertisements, even though those systems didn't exist when the game was released, mainly due to Nintendo's license with Kawasaki having expired. The Wii U version puts the original Product Placement back in.

The Mega Man Battle Network series games that included multiplayer have been modified to grant the player the Socialization Bonus chips from the beginning of the game, as they would otherwise be unobtainable because of the inability of GBA games on Wii U to use multiplayer.

Super Smash Bros. changes the GameCube controller mappings to match that of the later installments.

In The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, the solution for solving the infamous Sea Chart Puzzle is instead done by opening the Virtual Console menu then closing it, simulating the opening-closing of a DS's lid.

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